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Cooked Reports Not Just in Iraqi Intel. It's All Political.

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by glynch, Aug 5, 2003.

  1. glynch

    glynch Member

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    We've seen that by sytematically cooking the intel on Iraq the Bush Admin finally arrived at a totally false conclusion re wmd. You get to the point where aside from deceiving the public they migh even have believed their cooked evidence. The same sytematic slanting of evidence is happening with the budget, the environment and other policy issues.
    ****************
    Everything Is Political
    By PAUL KRUGMAN


    he agency's analysts find that they are no longer helping to formulate policy; instead, their job is to rationalize decisions that have already been made. And more and more, they find that they are expected to play up evidence, however weak, that seems to support the administration's case, while suppressing evidence that doesn't.

    Am I describing the C.I.A.? The E.P.A.? The National Institutes of Health? Actually, I'm talking about the Treasury Department, but the ambiguity is no coincidence. Across the board, the Bush administration has politicized policy analysis. Whether the subject is stem cells or global warming, budget deficits or weapons of mass destruction, government agencies are under intense pressure to say what the White House wants to hear. And the long-term consequences are likely to be dire.

    Traditionally the Treasury, like the C.I.A., stands somewhat above the political fray. Externally, it is supposed to provide objective data that Congress and the public can use to evaluate administration proposals. Internally, long-serving Treasury analysts traditionally ride herd on political appointees, warning them when their proposals are ill conceived or irresponsible.

    But under the Bush administration the Treasury takes its marching orders from White House political operatives. As The New Republic points out, when John Snow meets with Karl Rove, the meetings take place in Mr. Rove's office.

    To the general public, the most obvious consequence of this subservience has been Treasury's meek acquiescence in an economic policy that hasn't produced any jobs, but has produced a $450 billion deficit. Insiders, however, are if anything even more dismayed by the erosion of Treasury's intellectual integrity — an erosion exemplified by its denial and deception on the subject of tax cuts.

    Here's the story: Treasury has an elaborate computer model designed to evaluate who benefits and who loses from any proposed change in tax laws. For example, the model can be used to estimate how much families in the middle of the income distribution will gain from a tax cut, or the share of that tax cut that goes to the top 1 percent of families. In the 1990's the results of such analyses were routinely made public.

    But since George W. Bush came into power, the department has suppressed most of that information, releasing only partial, misleading tables. The purpose of this suppression, of course, is to conceal the extent to which Mr. Bush's tax cuts concentrate their bounty on families with very high incomes. In a stinging recent article in Tax Notes, the veteran tax analyst Martin Sullivan writes of the debate over the 2001 cut that "Treasury's analysis was so embarrassingly poor and so biased, we thought we had seen the last of its kind." But worse was to come.

    For his June 22 interview with Howard Dean, Tim Russert asked the Treasury Department to prepare examples showing how repealing the Bush tax cuts would affect ordinary families. Presumably Mr. Russert thought Treasury would provide a representative selection — that is, like many in the media, he doesn't yet understand the extent to which Treasury has become an arm of the White House political machine.

    In any case, the examples Treasury provided to Mr. Russert and others in the media were wildly unrepresentative. To give you a sense: the Treasury's example of a "lower income" elderly household was one receiving $2,000 a year in dividend income. In fact, only about one elderly household in four receives any dividend income, and only one in eight receives as much as $2,000. Not surprisingly, the "Russert families" gained far more from the Bush tax cuts than a representative sample. As Mr. Sullivan put it, "If this continues, the Treasury's Office of Tax Policy may have to change its name to the Office of Tax Propaganda."

    As I've said, this is only one example of a broad pattern. Still, why does politicized analysis matter? One answer is that it undermines democracy: how can Congress or the public make informed votes if both are fed distorted information?

    And even if you aren't bothered by an administration that systematically misleads the public, you ought to be worried about the decisions of an administration that systematically misleads itself. A leader who is told only what he wants to hear is all too likely to make bad decisions about the economy, the environment and beyond.

    Another good Krugman article shows the efect of this type of dishonesty on California, which might very well be a preview of what will happen to the nation as the conservative agenda, sold by cooking the books on the evidence is implemented nationwide.

    Krugman 1

    krugman 2
     
  2. Legendary21

    Legendary21 Member

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    Western world democracy is getting more hollow by the day. We´re being duped.
     
  3. El_Conquistador

    El_Conquistador King of the D&D, The Legend, #1 Ranking

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    Let me share with you a letter I received today from Ed Gillespie, the new leader of the RNC. He succinctly summarizes glynch's position in his second paragraph.

    Dear Trader_Jorge,

    What a great first week this has been.

    The President's commitment to growing our party is clear and towards that end my first meeting as RNC Chairman was with the CEO and COO of the National Urban League. It was a wonderful opportunity to compare ideas and discuss how we can work together towards our common goal of improving the lives of all Americans.

    In contrast, the Democrats running for President seem unwilling or unable to identify a positive agenda for America, spending most of their time attacking the President or in some cases even each other. They continue to filibuster qualified judges and seek to downplay positive signs that our economy is growing again. As I've said before, "The other party has come to the conclusion that what's worst for the American people is what's best for them." Until next week, thank you for being a Team Leader and working to make America a better place for everyone.

    Sincerely,

    Ed Gillespie
     
  4. Legendary21

    Legendary21 Member

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  5. MadMax

    MadMax Member

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    I think what TJ is trying to say is that you can't win presidential campaigns by focusing solely on the perceived negatives of your opponent.
     
  6. B-Bob

    B-Bob "94-year-old self-described dreamer"
    Supporting Member

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    Exactly. I too was flumoxed by the fact that he is called Trader_Jorge by the republican party.
     
  7. RocketMan Tex

    RocketMan Tex Member

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    George W. Bush proved this statement wrong in 2000.
     
  8. pgabriel

    pgabriel Educated Negro

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    Exactly, all they focused on was "bringing integrity back to the White House".
     
  9. No Worries

    No Worries Member

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    all they focused on was "bringing integrity back to the White House"

    I suspect political ads with that as the opening line juxtaposed against the litany of the Bush Admin deceptions would find a great deal of traction with the voters.
     
    #9 No Worries, Aug 6, 2003
    Last edited: Aug 6, 2003
  10. ROXTXIA

    ROXTXIA Member

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    Quoting Ed Gillespie just undermines any point you want to make. Just another pencil-neck in a blue suit running interference for God and guns.
     
  11. SamFisher

    SamFisher Member

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    What the hell did he promise anyway? I don't even remember it was so bland and useless. If he promised to be the only president besides Hoover to have a net decrease in jobs after a term and to turn the budget surplus into a record deficit thanks to his tax plans, I guess he delivered.

    I realize that the president has little impact on the business cycle, but does anybody realize that even Jimmy Carter, who was synonymous with economic malaise and was satan in right wing circles before Bill came along, was able to leave office saying that jobs were created while he was in office?
     

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